There are Only Two Things Certain in Life
by hermania
Summary: ... Death and Taxes. Due to a series of unfortunate events beyond their control, the Autobots are forced to stay at a motel 7, Optimus Prime is not impressed. Who needs to battle Decepticons, when you've got Autobots fighting over the last mattress.
1. How it all began

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THERE ARE ONLY TWO THINGS CERTAIN IN LIFE DEATH AND TAXES

Staring: Optimus Prime, Jazz, Wheeljack, Bluestreak, Sunstreaker, Bumblebee, Sideswipe, Ironhide, Prowl, Ratchet, and Red Alert (for now)

* * *

Optimus Prime, great leader of the Autobots. Role model to many could stop a Decepticon in their tracks with a single glare. If there was a definition of greatness, Optimus Prime's picture would be right there along side it in the dictionary. All of the Autobots looked up to their great leader. Yes all of his loyal, compassionate crew-

**CRASH!**

"Get off me you Slag-hole and stay on your side of the line!"

"Me? Maybe I'll shut up if youuuu stop jumping on the mattress, and by mattress I mean I AM NOT A FRAGGING MATRESS!"

Optimus Prime sighed, and looked up from his memoirs. This would be the fourth time today that he had to go and break up another fight between his Autobots. The last time it was because some one had evidently stolen Ironhide's breakfast, thus resulting in a full on full battle, almost sending the entire building they were in flying off its foundation. Now usually his companions got along very well, they had to seeing how they had been traveling together for millions and millions of years (granted a lot of that time had been in stasis under a volcano) but can you imagine how very long of a trip that _would_ have been if they were at each other throats all the time?

Optimus got up from his chair with a groan, and walked across the room, stepping over the line that was drawn crudely on the floor with a purple marker.

"What seems to be the problem now?" he asked glaring down at sunstreaker and Bumblebee

Bumblebee taking up the initiative to impress Optimus as always said, "It was him! He started jumping on me!"

"Well you shouldn't have been on my side of the room!"

"He pushed me!" yelled bumblebee, pointing an accusing finger at sideswipe, who quickly rearranged his features to a look of innocent curiosity.

"QUIET!" yelled Optimus, glaring at them all. "What happened to my solution? Each of you gets your own section of the room," he pointed to the purple line "and you will stay there until we find a way out of this mess"

All the Autobots nodded quickly, no one wanted to disobey the big bot when he got into one of his moods, especially with the lack of sleep they were all getting these days. In fact it was hard to get any sleep when there were eight bots living in two conjoined rooms of a Motel 7. Between that and the partiers down the hall in 305 partying all night, he was very surprised he was functioning at all.

_How the hell did they get in this mess?_ Thought Optimus _oh, that's right … every thing just seemed to go wrong all at once._

FLASHBACK

It had been years since they had first arrived on earth. Their new home of Earth had a lot of firsts for them, things that they had never done before: like learning how to hang ten on a surf board, fighting enhanced robotic female ninjas, and how to get the most out of riding a tea cup ride at the county fair (which bumblebee would brag about for years to come) but their beloved earth still had a few surprises of its own.

It all started to fall apart on one particular day. Everything was going smoothly on this very day as Prowl was busying himself keeping up with his daily routine of taking notes around the arc, making sure the protocols were up to date. He stopped when he noticed the flag was up on the mailbox outside the arc. He frowned, since when did the Autobots get mail?

Kneeling down outside he opened the mailbox, there were quite a few letters and quite a few of them were red he noticed. Flipping past the various car magazines, mad mags, popular science and Cosmo's he opened the red envelopes. His jaw dropped.

"Hey what's with Prowl out there?" asked Ratchet, watching Prowls still form through the window, he had become stationary for the past 5 minutes.

Ironhide frowned "I dunno, he seams brokn'"

"… Do I need to fix your vocal cords again Ironhide?"

Just then a streak of red and white flew by, literally "ACH! Noooo … over slept … Decepticons … attack … bzzt… must … secure …"

"Never mind, I think I am going to have bigger problems today" said Ratchet watching Red Alert the paranoid security officer running as fast as he could to the mailbox. And with that the medic turned his heel, walked to his office, and slammed the door behind him. The doctor was not going to be in today.

* * *

--Insert Revolving Autobot symbol--

* * *

Red Alert caught up to Prowl as he stood next to the mailbox, the sparks were flying out of the security officers' head, and his eyes were bulging, he looked pretty alarming. Red grabbed the letters Prowl was holding, and blasted them with his gun, he then kicked the remains all the while spazzing, "Never again decepticons … never again"

"Red Alert …" said Prowl slowly as he turned on the spot to face him; his face was completely unemotional except for a little twitch on the corner of his faceplates. "H-how long have you been doing this?"

Red Alert looked up from the pile of ashes. "The decepticons … for years … they will kill us when they get the chance … no one left to … no one left … I knew this was going to happen." he said shaking, then he glared at Prowl. "And you! You're all against me! I know it!"

"Uh huh" said Prowl, even he was amazed at how he could keep his voice so level. Any other bot would have blasted Red to smithereens just like those letters. "… And why have you been doing this?"

"… When you see the reds of a decepticons eyes … you know … you just know …that - that the cake is a lie" he slurred, as one of his optics was getting bigger and bigger every second.

Prowl stepped back from him, trying to put as much distance between them as he could without looking rude. It didn't help that Red kept coming closer and closer, pointing to his eye.

"Optimus we've got a problem," the tactician finally said through his intercom.

* * *

--Insert revolving Autobot symbol--

* * *

"We've got a serious problem on our hands …" Prowl started, but stopped when he saw that no one was paying him any attention. He and the other Autobots had gathered in the boardroom of the arc, many of the others couldn't care less that this was a mission briefing: Wheeljack the scientist was tinkering with another experiment of his, it looked suspiciously like a toaster, with a lot of black powder coming out of it. As long as it wasn't another robotic dinosaur, no one really minded. Bluestreak who was on the other side of Wheeljack was staring at Prowl with wide glazed optics, but was clearly not taking anything in. Next to Prowl on the right was Jazz, second in command. He was playing his music very loud as he bobbed his head to and fro, so fast that it looked like it would take off at any second.

The twin Lamborghini's, Sideswipe and Sunstreaker had positioned themselves on either side of Bumblebee, both had been staring at the mini bot without blinking for the past 15 minutes, trying to get a rise out of him, it was working. Ironhide was sleeping; he was an old friend of Optimus' so he could get a way with quite a lot and he knew it. Optimus himself was writing quickly on a data pad, every so often Bluestreak would try and get a glimpse of what the leader was writing, at which point Optimus would quickly hide it under the table. Ratchet was nowhere to be seen, everyone assumed he was fixing up Red (again).

"Optimus!" no reply. "OPTIMUS!"

"Hmm? Oh right," said Optimus, sitting straight up in his chair. "Yes we are in quite a pickle, it seems that ah, Red Alert has been destroying our letters for years, and it seems that we have been missing the payments on some of our bills for a while now."

Prowl took out a bag from under his chest compartment, and poured the contents onto the table. It was what was left of the letters that Red had destroyed.

"As you can see, he did a pretty thorough job of taking care of –"

"-Will you STOP staring at me!" Everyone looked around, Ironhide grunted awake; an enraged Bumblebee was seething and breathing hard at the twins. "I can't believe you don't have anything better to do with your time then stare at – hey! My Cosmo," he grinned, taking the magazines from the pile of ashes.

"…"

Optimus paused, "Alright so it turns out that were 300 million dollars in debt to the humans. It turns out that just because we are alien robots from a distant planet does not mean that we are immune to paying taxes." Optimus nodded to all the groans, and boos "Maybe if we had gotten to these bills earlier we would have realized this and could have avoided the compound interest. Oh, we also haven't been paying our hydro bill for the past 4 million years, and we seem to have landed in a wildlife reserve," he muttered very fast

"Hey isn't that the tacticians job to make sure crap like that doesn't happen?" said Sunstreaker glaring at Prowl

Prowl narrowed his optics at the yellow Lamborghini "I am the tactician. Not the entire financial department." He gave Sunstreaker a look that totally meant 'I will see you after the briefing.'

Sideswipe gaped at Optimus, "but we live on energon as power …"

"Yes, but energon is just a fancy name that transformers made up to use when we are stealing other civilizations recourses," Wheeljack nodded at the brilliance of the scheme.

"What? So we actually have to pay these fleshies?"

"Yes, Sunstreaker, I just don't know how we are going to afford this. It is a lot of money … any suggestions?" Optimus asked the other Autobots. Several bots raised their hands.

"Why not rent the arc? We have a couple of spare rooms …"

"I could autograph some pictures of myself."

"We could sell Red Alert."

"Good, but I doubt he would fetch that much. How bout we just leave and go back to cybertron."

"Now, now Bluestreak, I think that's what the humans call tax evasion"

"But-"

"Autobots, I think we are going to have to sell the arc."

All of the Autobots stared at Optimus in disbelief. "Where are we going to live?" quivered Bumblebee.

* * *

TBC

So I couldn't stop giggling at this idea … and I am probably about the only one who would love to see all of the transformers stuck in this situation, but oh well :D

Personally I think there should be more stories with the transformers just having fun, that are longer then one shots.

Staring: Optimus Prime, Jazz, Wheeljack, Bluestreak, Sunstreaker, Bumblebee, Sideswipe, Ironhide, Prowl, Ratchet, and Red Alert (for now)

Warning: Crack fic (or as my friend so delicately put it … this may be too much crack) not too much to begin with … but later oh boy

Sooo …

I don't really want to tell people to R&R because technically you already read it if you got this far … but Review!


	2. Prowl: Underrated Second in Command

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second chapter

thanks for the reviews!! :D i would love to reply to them in the comments, but i still haven't figured out how to use it - anyone know where to access it?

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Chapter 2: Prowl Underrated Second in Command

Being a receptionist at a Motel 7 meant you really did meet some interesting guests. Some were good some were bad. And some …

"How may I help you?" said the cheerful receptionist at counter to the waiting Autobots in the lobby. It was a very sleazy motel, but it was the only motel that was in the Autobots price range. A train roared past them outside, and there was a distinct smell to the place. It was a mix between very strong perfume, and rotting fish.

The Autobots had decided to sell the arc this weekend, and put an ad up in the local newspaper. There were already some clients interested, and while they negotiated in selling the arc, the Autobots had to live somewhere else for the time being.

Prowl sighed. He was second in command of the Autobots (well everyone still counted Jazz with that title, but he was more for show) this was very humiliating. "Um, yes I need to get a couple of rooms for a while. Preferably separate."

"Alright," she said nodding to him. "And how will you be paying this?" Prowl gave her his credit card. She swiped the card, it took just long enough to process that you knew that the transaction was going to get cancelled. Sure enough: "I am sorry sir but your card seems to have er insufficient funds."

"… All right, how about we try just two rooms then …" He said, thinking that the next couple of weeks were going to be very very long, and excruciatingly painful. Prowl who had already begun to loose his patience back in the arc with Red Alert and Sunstreaker, was trying to ignore the other Autobots behind him.

"Ha ha I told you, you couldn't drive around here look at all the fleshies on your grill!"

"Mmmph, you should try this green stuff, its pretty good …"

"Bumblebee those are fake plants, and I think ya should put 'em back where ya found it."

"Blaughghgh"

"I didn't mean throw it up on me, man!"

"… Make that 3 rooms," Prowl sighed, yes he was second in command, at least if he was going to get demoted to ordering their rooms, there should be some fringe benefits.

Prowl took the keys and walked over to where Optimus and Ironhide were standing. Both of them were doing a very bad job of pretending they were not with the others, Prowl handed them two of the keys. "We couldn't afford separate rooms soooo its going to be a little tight."

Optimus did not look impressed. Even less so when Bluestreak called over, "Optimus! Optimus! Bumblebee's choking!" Optimus sighed, what ever happened to the fearless, independent Autobots he once commanded? And why was he playing babysitter?

Prowl was itching to give Bumblebee a reprimand for eating those leaves. But decided to leave it to someone else, he could already feel his processors squeaking, there had been too much randomness today for the tactician to handle.

Optimus looked down at Bumblebee to examine him. He had leaves coming out of his mouth, and his armour was slowly going blue. Optimus was about to wrench open the bug's mouth, when he stopped, this wasn't his job "Where's Ratchet?" he asked.

* * *

Meanwhile back at the arc

Unlocking the door, Ratchet finally came out of the office. It was surprising; usually there was a long cue in the room by this time at night.

"Hello?" it was quiet, too quiet. "Anybody home?" They probably had a mission of some sort, and they would probably call him soon enough when they needed _him_ to fix their injuries or something.

As he walked out of the med bay, he tripped on something very large on the floor. Looking down, he noticed that it was Red Alert. The security officer was lying face down on the floor, there were still small sparks coming out of his head, but he wasn't moving. At least someone had the courtesy to bring the fallen warrior to the door of the medical facility. How nice of them.

Ratchet kicked the body of Red Alert into his bay.

* * *

Back at the Motel.

"Right Autobots, Transform and Roll out to our rooms!" Roared Optimus, as the Autobots geared up to transform. "Wait wait! No don't transform, it's just an expression. J-just walk."

Grumbling slightly the Autobots followed their leader up the stairs.

"Hmmm I think I need a bath," said Sideswipe, wiping some specks of red off his frame. Luckily it was hard to tell it apart from his red paint.

"Ah here we are," said Optimus stopping in front of the 2 doors on either side of each other. "Ok myself, Ironhide, Jazz, and Prowl will take this room. And the rest of you take that room. We all share the common room." Luckily being leader allowed him to make important decisions in life, and those decisions allowed him to room with the more cooler bots (A/N that's what Optimus said not me) and the bots that wouldn't freeze his under armour in the middle of the night.

Everyone looked less then thrilled of their current living arrangements. The wallpaper was peeling, and floors uneven, and their seemed to be a small lack of beds. There was also the distant sound of loud partiers down the hall.

"Well while all of you get settled, I am going to go and set up some protocols around our new base." Prowl frowned no one was listening again. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker had started to jump on the beds in the other room through the open door. "Right …"

TBC

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so what did you think?

suggestions are welcome and appreciated :D

so please review!!

(ps anyone catch that leaked avatar boiling rock on the internet?)


	3. Complementary Breakfast

I just wanted to say thankyou to (in no particular order): **Fransuare, Kala, Plenoptic, Clarman, Grimlockx4, Garcia-316hellyeah, Kayla the shapeshifter, and Quietone80** and special thanks to **Nuclear Chick, and Kelpie86** for helping me make the Autobots lives even worse :D

thanks guys!!

The room that the Autobots are staying in has two rooms, both conjoined by one door, which for some reason has no lock. (i think i described it differently in the other chapter ... ohwell)

Disclaimer: don't own nothing, and my apologizes to ACDC

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**There Are Only Two Things Certain in Life … Death and Taxes**

* * *

"Right Autobots, transform and roll out … to bed," said Optimus putting on his nightcap. The other Autobots followed suit, changed into their pyjamas and got into their sleeping bags. The cots they were sleeping on groaned with their weight as the settled in for the night.

**_'Cause the walls start shaking__  
The earth was quaking__  
My mind was aching  
And we were makin it and you-_**

Optimus groaned and stuffed his head under the pillow. But it was not enough to cut out the party music coming from down the hall, and even less to cut out the terrible karaoke.

"Optimus," whispered Bumblebee, stepping into the room Optimus, Jazz, and Ironhide's were sleeping in. "None of us can sleep its been hours, can you please go over there and tell them to turn it down?" Bumblebee's eyes filled up with tears as Ironhide gave a loud fake snore.

Groaning Optimus got up, rubbed his eyes, and stomped towards the front door. He passed Sunstreaker, Bluestreak and Sideswipe as he went who were watching intently from the door that joined their two rooms.

The music was just as loud in the hall as it was in their room, the walls must have been paper-thin. Optimus knocked on the door to 307 and waited. No one answered. All he got in return to his knock was the music being turned up even louder.

**_SHOOK ME ALL NIGHT LONG  
YEAH YOU SHOOK ME ALL NIGHT LONG!_**

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--Revolving Autobot sign --

* * *

It was breakfast time at the Motel, it was about the only perk the Autobots had to living in the motel: the complementary breakfast. Optimus, Bumblebee, and Jazz were seated around a wooden table in the dining hall. Sideswipe, and Sunsteaker were at the buffet filling their plates with everything they could reach, and Bluestreak was just telling them how to make the most out of breakfast.

"You see, you want to put as much on your plate as you can, see it's a buffet right? And then half of the stuff on your plate goes in a tuper-ware container for later. I got that little tip off Smokescreen. 'Get as much as you can, while ya can.' That's what I always say. You know, that reminds me of the time when me and Beachcomber had a little too much energon at the last Autobot Christmas party and … Hey!"

Sunstreaker had slammed his plate down at the Autobots table. Bits of scrambled eggs flew everywhere. Sunstreaker glared at the non-blue Autobot, _if Bluestreak told that story one more time…_.

"Look, can we all just calm down?" said Optimus rubbing the sleep out of his optics, trying to defuse the situation between Sunstreaker and Bluestreak. "Now I know none of us got a good recharge last night and we are all a little uptight this morning, but lets try and enjoy a nice healthy-"

Optimus frowned at his half eaten French toast. "Wait a second … can Transformers eat organic breakfast?"

"…"

There was a very long and echoing pause through out the small table as everyone stared down at their breakfast, which was at various states of being finished. Sideswipe broke the silence as he spat out his scrambled eggs back onto his plate. Sunstreaker's faceplates twitched as he flicked some egg off his arm.

"There must be a way out of this, …" grumbled Ironhide stepping around the various tables, and garbage littering the floor as he made his way to the wooden table the Autobots were sitting at. He knocked as many people as he could face down into their porridge as he went, most on purpose just to show how frustrated he was.

"Mornin' Ironhide," said Bumblebee with a yawn. He had been completely oblivious to the conversation the other Autobots had about organic breakfast, and was munching on his fruit loop cereal.

"Ah was thinkin'...Shouldn' there have been someone sent ta collect frum us?" said Ironhide excepting a plate of scrambled eggs from Sideswipe. Taking a large bite he continued, "they should have sent someone to get their money, ta give us a warnin' instead of sending us junk through the mail."

The other Autobots looked at him thoughtfully, he did have a point, Sideswipe whistled loudly.

Flashback – 5 months ago

There were duties in the arc that had to be done, mainly cleaning and maintenance. Of course when those duties were assigned the entire arc went scarce. So these duties were usually assigned to the Autobots whom were thrown into the brig. The arc had always been known far and wide as a peacekeeping ship, so it was very surprising how fast the brig could fill up.

It was the middle of the afternoon when a knock came from the front door of the arc.

Knock _knock knock_

Sideswipe and Sunstreaker looked up from Ratchet's secret cupboards in the med bay they were ransacking. Which was conveniently placed next to the front door of the arc.

"Who do you think it is?" asked sideswipe.

Sunstreaker shrugged, taking out a bottle of some unknown liquid and shaking it wondering if it was valuable or not. "I don't know it had better not be Hotrod again …" he said angrily shaking his fist.

"Someone probably forgot their key, or it could be Red Alert being paranoid, probably checking to see if the door bell works," said Sideswipe frowning at a picture of Ratchet from the Christmas party he found. Really, a bot like him should not be showing that much under armour. _Oh well there was one use for it: Blackmail._

"Make sure you check first. Cause if its Hotrod …" said Sunstreaker narrowing his eyes.

Sideswipe got up and made for the door, as he opened it he looked down, "Hellooo … well if it isn't a little Fleshy." He grinned down at the little man in a black suit standing in the doorway. "What can I do for you little Fleshy?"

A man stood on the threshold of the front door; he was dressed in a sharp black suit, and had a little moustache. Regardless of how little this man was he looked up at the giant red Lamborghini without fear, well almost. Taking off his glasses he said, "yes, um I was wondering if I could speak to a Mr. or Mrs. Optimus Prime in regards to the IRS tax forms that-"

"Hey Sunny! Come look at this! It's a little man, aww does the little man have something to tell the giant robots? Haha look at that funny little moustache he has on his face."

Sunstreaker came running up behind his brother, and with a little skid stopped next to him. He had the identical grin that his brother wore.

_Now there were two of them_, thought the IRS man.

"You know what this means Sideswipe?"

"I sure do Sunstreaker … FLESHLING BALL!" Sideswipe shouted grabbing the little man with his large metal hands. "Go long Sunny!"

"No wait this is a federal offence, you can't – AHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhh."

After a couple of superior catches were made, Sunstreaker shrieked, "Eeewww, that thing is getting red stuff all over my paint."

End of Flashback

"… Sideswipe"

Sideswipe looked over at the other Autobots across the table. Ironhide had his mouth opened, egg was slowly dripping out of it. Sunstreaker glared at his twin.

"Oops… haha did I relive that flashback out loud?"

Optimus stood up quickly, stretching out a finger he pointed at the twins. "Brig, now!"

"… But we don't have a brig."

Ignoring this little fact, Optimus grabbed Sunstreaker and Sideswipe by the cuff of the neck and took his two subordinate Autobots out of the dinning room and into the hall. It wasn't so much that he was angry that they had willingly put innocent humans in danger, it was more of the fact that Optimus just missed his own recharge bed back at home.

* * *

--Revolving Autobot sign--

* * *

"Hey Optimus?" said Bumblebee. "I don't feel so good."

Optimus looked over at Bumblebee as he and the other Autobots (minus the twins) went back to their rooms. Bumblebee really didn't look good, and it was surprising how much his armour could change colour. First it had gone blue, now it was a sickly green colour. Bumblebee clutched his stomach.

"Now that ya mention it, Ah'm not feeling so good either," muttered Ironhide. His Red stomach rumbled unpleasantly.

There was a couple of more groans from the Autobots, Jazz put a hand to his mouth, maybe transformers really shouldn't eat organic food. They stared at each other, each feeling sicker by the minute, then without warning all of the Autobots took off down the hall, in a race to see who would get to the bathroom first. Ironhide pushed Bumblebee and Bluestreak out of the way with a sweep of his hands. Jazz head butted Ironhide in the back, causing him to fall into Optimus.

Bluestreak ran over the pile of Autobots in the hall, making sure to step on each of their heads, he had almost reached the door to their room when with a roar of rage Optimus took out his large blue axe, and sliced a hole in the supporting wall of the hallway. Half of the wall came falling down on Bluestreak, Ironhide, and Jazz.

The last thing Optimus heard as he yanked open the hotel door was a "Hey man, dat ain't cool!". Suddenly Bumblebee leaped up out of no where and sank his small little teeth into Optimus' forearm. Yelling, Optimus threw off Bumblebee with ease into one of the walls in the room. Slamming the door to the bathroom, he ran for the toilet.

"Blararagh!"

All of that mornings breakfast came up and into the toilet; a large swirling mess of energon and French toast. He slumped over the toilet bowl. Then he heard it …

Crick crick crick

They were everywhere, cockroaches, the size of – of Insecticons! Oh primus oh primus oh primus …

"AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH"

The other Autobots stared at the door, many of them sporting bruised armour, Ironhide was still trying to get dust and drywall out of all the little nooks and crannies in his. A couple more fights had been scuffled out while standing in the cue, Bumblebee of course being the smallest was pushed to the back. None of the Autobots had even realized that there was another bathroom in the other room.

"Ah … Optimus?" Asked Jazz, next in line for the bathroom sounding concerned. "Are ya doin' all right in there?"

By the end of the day the complementary breakfast ended up not being one of the perks to living in a motel.

TBC

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yeah I can't believe I just ended with a potty joke --

soooo how are the Autobots going to pay off their major debts ... and survive their newest problem: Pests? **Next Chapter:** Optimus gets a job, find out what Ratchet has been up to these days? and also: you know where ever the Autobots are, the Decepticons can't be far behind!


End file.
